Industrial automation is used to control machines and processes in manufacturing. Automated machines commonly control the handling of components, sub-components, and raw materials, perform fabrication processes, testing, product handling, packaging, and shipping. Industrial automation enables precise control of industrial processes, achievement of smaller tolerances and better quality products, higher production outputs, and increased worker safety and productivity.
Industrial automation installations comprise multiple computerized devices that control industrial machines and industrial processes. The components of an industrial automation installation must work together in a coordinated fashion, performing operations such as exchanging data, controlling the timing and scheduling of processes, providing information to operators or technicians, and receiving operator inputs.
Because of the large number of system variables that must be monitored and controlled, industrial automation systems often generate vast amounts of data. In addition to production statistics, data relating to machine health, alarm status, operator feedback, electrical or mechanical load, and the like are often monitored. The data is generated by the many industrial devices that can make up a given automation system, including industrial controllers and associated I/O, telemetry devices, motion control devices, valves, conveyors, raw material handling systems, product handling systems, visualization applications, traceability systems, and the like. Moreover, such industrial facilities can operate on a twenty-four hour basis, wherein automation systems can generate a vast amount of data.
In addition, industrial automation monitoring has evolved from monitoring devices in an industrial plant to include monitoring devices at remote sites, such as mobile or temporary facilities. Industrial automation monitoring can be used for drilling, mining, and other resource extraction operations. Industrial automation monitoring can be used in monitoring water treatment facilities or in monitoring of environmental conditions. Industrial automation monitoring can be used to monitor the health and operation of industrial automation devices including field equipment.
Industrial automation devices can generate industrial automation data at multiple, geographically disparate locations. The industrial automation data can be collected via the cloud, wherein industrial automation data can be accumulated and made available to a user or users via the cloud. Where the industrial automation devices are distributed geographically, the cloud advantageously provides a facility for accessing data from multiple, distributed industrial automation devices.
While good solutions exist today for securing communications across industrial automation devices across a factory floor, it is critical that secure, private, trusted communications are maintained from these on-premises industrial automation devices up to these cloud-hosted services.